Free Guy – sunglasses people. I’ve mentioned this film before for its simulated reality and AI aspects. But for this, it’s because it reminded me of the next film mentioned. Of there being a different world visible to you if you are wearing these glasses. Money, status, fun, opportunities and anything you could want. Unless you are one of the NPC’s, destined for a life of repeated banality pandering to the ‘elite’.
They Live – the sunglasses here too. But what they revealed in this world that was hidden, was far more sinister. Way beyond celebrity, or class, or democracy. This was full blown us and them. Using the glasses to detect your enemy, who until revealed looks just like anybody else. Those are the most horrifying monsters in movies, the ones you can’t see, whatever their camouflage.
Alice through the looking glass, I noted the mention of black and white for the kittens, and how she wonders what the world is like on the other side of the mirror. And when she does step through, finds herself in an alternate world. Sounding a bit metaverse like, and reminding me of Coraline, where interestingly there is a scene where she is thrown through a mirror, into a dingy forgotten room with ghosts. As well as the overall theme of stepping into an alternate reality.
Pensieve viewing dish from Harry Potter, an interesting device which stores memories, that can be reviewed in detail later through a misty liquid looking material. Which also makes me think of the device in Minority Report, where the viewers thoughts and images of what they ‘see’ which is projected via a liquid mechanism.
The chronovisor, this a strange device that hasn’t actually been proven to exist, but there is talk it does. And us owned by the Vatican, was designed and constructed by Italian scientists in the 1950’s. It’s said to be able to allow the photographing, viewing and hearing of past and future events. If you did have something like that, you can see why it might be kept a secret. If everyone could view both, surely some would waste their life viewing what was, and others would spend their time trying to change what was to be. Would anyone get on with just living?
Many these days get the feeling there is something else, either behind what we see, or running alongside us. Perhaps even underneath, like the upside down in Stranger Things. Where sometimes what is on the other side doesn’t wait for us to step through the mirror, maybe sometimes they find a way through to here…
